More than 50,000 mourners marched through the capital of Syria’s Kurdish heartland Saturday in a funeral procession for an opposition figure who was assassinated.

Protesting mourners gather along with Faris (unseen), the son of the Syrian Kurdish opposition Meshaal Tamo, who was assassinated in Syria the day before.

By:Zeina KaramAssociated Press, Published on Sat Oct 08 2011

BEIRUT—More than 50,000 mourners marched through the capital of Syria’s Kurdish heartland Saturday in a funeral procession for one of the country’s most prominent opposition figures a day after his assassination. Security forces fired into the crowds, killing five people, witnesses said.

The turnout was by far the largest in the Kurdish northeast since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s autocratic regime seven months ago.

But it remains to be seen whether Friday’s slaying of charismatic Kurdish opposition figure Mashaal Tammo will trigger a sustained, large-scale outpouring by Syria’s Kurds that might bolster the wider uprising against Assad taking place across the nation.

Despite the gunfire, crowds pouring into the streets of Qamishli called on Assad to step down, chanting, “Leave! Leave!” — the cry used by tens of thousands of other Syrian protesters during the uprising. Some demanded Assad’s execution; others ripped down a statue of his late father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.

Tammo was killed Friday by masked men who burst into an apartment and gunned him down.

“All of Qamishli is out today. The funeral is turning into a massive protest,” Kurdish activist and lawyer Mustafa Osso told the Associated Press by telephone. The grieving cries of fellow mourners could be heard in the background.

Members of the Kurdish ethnic minority — Syria’s largest — have long complained of neglect and discrimination. Assad granted citizenship in April to stateless Kurds in eastern Syria in an attempt to address some of their grievances in the face of the swelling anti-government uprising that began the month before.

While many Kurds — who make up 15 per cent of the country’s 23 million people — have been taking part in the anti-government protests, Kurdish groups have yet to put their full weight behind the revolution.

If they do, their numbers could significantly reinforce the protest movement. Syria’s security forces already have their hands full in trying to stamp out dissent across much of the rest of the country.

A Syrian opposition figure said many Syrians were pinning their hopes on the Kurds joining the revolution. But he said Arab-Kurdish ethnic sensitivities might keep them from doing that.

“There is a mutual lack of trust between the two sides; the Kurds are worried,” he said on condition of anonymity. “They already feel excluded from the decision-making process and they fear for the future.”

Outrage over Tammo’s killing spilled over the border into Iraq’s Kurdish region.

Syrian Kurdish opposition parties based in Iraq’s self-ruled northern Kurdish region accused the Syrian government of killing Tammo and called for international intervention.

Security forces also fired on a funeral procession in the Damascus suburb of Douma for three people killed a day earlier, activists said. A 14-year-old boy was killed and 10 other people were wounded, according to the Local Coordination Committees and the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.